The Constellations aboard the Ark, having received the emergency alarm, began descending to the ground all at once.

[Fools.]

The first to catch the eye was a hero-grade Constellation at the very front, roaring as it swung a greatsword.

It was a star of the giant nebula <Olympus>, belonging to the “Argonaut Expedition.”

[Do you even know where you’ve dared to come—]

That was as far as the true word granted to it went. With a single slash from the Breaking Heaven Sword Saint, the Constellation’s incarnation body split cleanly into two.

Enraged, hero-grade Constellations each released their status and fell to the ground like shooting stars.

“Fire.”

At the Breaking Heaven Sword Saint’s signal, the transcendents who had formed ranks in the rear all raised their bows toward the sky at once.

[You mere mortals!]

With that tiresome rant about mortals, the Constellations radiating status in midair erupted into clouds of dust right there in the sky.

Ultra Strong Magic Arrows.

A volley of arrows far superior even to [Strong Magic Arrows], infused with the transcendents’ stories. The transcendents, who had already fought wars like this countless times, loosed arrows that were precise—and sharp.

[What in the—]

The Constellations that had been descending so confidently died one after another, struck by arrows before they could even set foot on the ground.

Even the ones lucky enough to land couldn’t withstand a single sword stroke from the Breaking Heaven Sword Saint.

[Kuaaaagh!]

They were hero-grade Constellations, but they were the kind that would be celebrated anywhere. And yet their heads were falling from a single stroke.

A few quick-witted hero-grade Constellations sensed something was wrong and turned to flee.

[Where do you think you’re going.]

But Apollo and the Twelve Seat Gods had already arrived.

Apollo casually lopped off the head of a fleeing hero-grade Constellation. As he frowned, the hero-grade Constellations that had shifted position again began screaming at the top of their lungs.

[The Twelve Seat Gods have arrived!]

[Everyone, get a grip! The enemy are only incarnation bodies!]

But before they could even form up, the Breaking Heaven Sword Saint’s order came down again.

“Cut them.”

“Was going to anyway.”

Cheok Jun-gyeong stepped forward, bristling. As he took his stance, an immense killing intent began to compress throughout his body.

Just as the Constellations, sensing danger, tried to bark out a warning—

One Sword, Slash a Thousand.

The Constellations in the front ranks split in half. A flawless sword form that, in the truest sense, cut through a thousand with a single blade—perfect, without a single blemish.

Since his opponents were Constellations, he couldn’t literally cut a thousand, but even so, that one slash took dozens of Constellations’ lives.

Staring blankly at Cheok Jun-gyeong’s terrifying might, some Constellations muttered in a daze.

[T-That’s impossible…]

[Move aside.]

At last, the Twelve Seat Gods themselves stepped forward. They had sensed it too. The humans before them possessed power that even story-grade Constellations could not dismiss.

Apollo glared at Cheok Jun-gyeong and asked.

[You should have been annihilated during the ‘Final Dragon.’ How did you come back?]

Cheok Jun-gyeong grinned, then revealed the status he’d been hiding without the slightest restraint.

[Constellation, ‘Goryeo’s Greatest Sword,’ reveals its status.]

Even story-grade Constellations’ expressions tightened at the commander-class pressure that swallowed the area.

Cheok Jun-gyeong spoke.

[I’ve always wanted to test it. Just how strong those smug ‘Olympus Twelve Seat Gods’ really are.]

From Cheok Jun-gyeong’s entire body, the status of a Constellation and the power of transcendence surged at the same time.

Transcendent Alliance 3rd Unit Commander, Goryeo’s Greatest Sword Cheok Jun-gyeong. Possessing the strongest incarnation body in history, he was one of the few beings in this world who held the power of both a Constellation and a transcendent.

Apollo spoke, voice heavy.

[Do you truly need to stand against us? Aren’t you a Constellation too?]

[On that Constellation’s epithet, I have to collect the price for tormenting my one and only disciple.]

[Disciple? Who are you talking about?]

[There is one. The guy who makes dumplings well.]

That was the signal. Cheok Jun-gyeong leapt.

Almost at the same time, a bright artificial sun rose behind Apollo’s back. A distant heat surged in—enough to burn the ground itself—yet Cheok Jun-gyeong only sneered as if it were ridiculous.

[So the rumor was true. You really do go around with a toy hanging over your head.]

[What?]

[Looks like you still haven’t inherited the seat of sun god from Helios.]

Maybe that had touched his reverse scale. Apollo’s raging sun spewed a corona of wavering flame. The corona’s fire was loaded straight onto Apollo’s bow.

[Insolent bastard. I’ll burn you so you can never revive again.]

Apollo aimed at the ground and released the bowstring. The arrow shot amid swirling flames, then split into hundreds—thousands—before striking down like lightning. The transcendents firing Ultra Strong Magic Arrows groaned and collapsed to the ground.

“Fire again!”

But the transcendents were stubborn. Each of them had entered “transcendence” after ruthless training. They weren’t going to back down from a blow like this.

[Annoying.]

Apollo snapped his fingers in the air. A colossal wall rose up around the Ark.

[Story, ‘Walls of Troy,’ begins its tale!]

It was the wall Apollo and Poseidon had once built to defend Troy.

Even Ultra Strong Magic Arrows, with their tremendous destructive power, bounced off. Faced with the wall’s fearsome thickness, the transcendents fell silent.

“How is this—”

This was the history the Twelve Seat Gods had piled up.

Apollo’s blazing sun flared atop the wall, glaring down at humanity in confusion.

[Foolish humans. You cannot win—]

[That predictable threat pattern really hasn’t changed in hundreds of years.]

Hearing the true word from right beside him, Apollo recoiled, startled.

Since when?

Cheok Jun-gyeong was standing right next to him.

[Shut up!]

Furious, Apollo released the bowstring again.

Cheok Jun-gyeong lightly twisted his body and slipped past the arrow. The artificial sun’s scorching heat poured down in full onto the wall instead.

Cheok Jun-gyeong laughed.

[That’s a toy that’d be perfect to hang over my disciple’s pillow.]

Cheok Jun-gyeong’s three-sword form spat fire—second sword to third sword. His secret arts, cutting mountains and slicing seas, cleaved through the wall and detonated against Apollo’s sun.

Kududududud!

Hero-grade Constellations caught in the shockwave screamed.

The artificial sun, split in half, sputtered sparks and lost its light.

Apollo stood before the shattered artificial sun, his whole body smeared with soot, murmuring in an empty voice.

[This is impossible… how… my sun…]

For the first time, fear crept onto Apollo’s face. He hurriedly turned and shouted.

[What are you all just standing there watching for! Hephaestus! Athena! Artemi—]

With a wet thud, Cheok Jun-gyeong’s sword pierced his heart.

Apollo’s incarnation body collapsed.

At the same time, the story-grade Constellations who had been waiting in the rear released their status and rushed at Cheok Jun-gyeong.

[Constellation, ‘Spokesperson of Justice and Wisdom,’ reveals its status!]

[Constellation, ‘Volcanic Blacksmith,’ reveals its status!]

[Constellation, ‘Pure Moonlight Hunter,’ reveals its status!]

To deal with Cheok Jun-gyeong alone, three story-grade Constellations manifested their killing intent.

As a tide of stories packed with a giant nebula’s power surged in, Cheok Jun-gyeong gave a bitter smile.

[Three is a bit much.]

For someone saying that, he fought astonishingly well. He knocked away Artemis’ arrows, blocked Hephaestus’ hammer, and whenever he saw an opening, he targeted Athena’s aegis.

Facing down three of the Twelve Seat Gods and fighting them to a standstill, Cheok Jun-gyeong’s ferocity made the Constellations gape as if they were sick of it.

Then, at the edge of the broken Walls of Troy, a Constellation appeared. The air in the area shifted lightly, and a lightning-like true word slammed into the breastwork.

[Olympus looks like a mess.]

The moment the true word fell, the expressions of Constellations and transcendents alike changed. Color returned to the Constellations’ faces, while a shadow fell over the transcendents’.

It couldn’t be helped.

The Constellation who had appeared could change the mood of this entire battlefield.

If <Olympus> had the Twelve Seat Gods, then <Veda> had eight Lokapalas.

The only “Lokapala” to survive to the final scenario, and the single star who proclaimed itself the strongest among them.

[Children of <Olympus>. Do you require this one’s help?]

Indra, the “Thunderbolt Divine King.”

Excluding the three chief gods of <Veda>, the being known as the strongest had just manifested at the Ark’s entrance.

Grinning as he spread his arms, Indra drifted down and landed beneath the wall, then asked.

[Is there any human who dares face me?]

Absolute confidence—there couldn’t possibly be anyone who could oppose the thunderbolt divine king.

And yet, as if he’d been waiting, a transcendent stepped forward.

Indra looked down at the fist-sized transcendent standing before him.

[What is this. This little rat.]

But when that little rat drew his sword, Indra had already taken a combat stance without realizing it. Startled, Indra furrowed his brow.

“He made me tense?”

The smallest transcendent in the world.

He felt like he’d heard that name somewhere.

A dwarf from a fringe planet who ran around spouting insane nonsense about how the smallest thing was the greatest.

[So it’s you.]

Transcendent Alliance 2nd Commander, Paradox White Azure Kyrios Rodgraim.

“Let’s begin.”

No sooner had the words fallen than the figures of the two beings vanished. For an instant, it was as if the area had flipped into a vacuum—every sound disappeared—then a terrifying thunderbolt exploded in the sky.

A storm of lightning that lashed without pause.

Every time Kyrios’ [Total Humanization] collided with Indra’s [Heaven-and-Earth Thunderstorm], the night sky’s scenery was being rewritten.

[Constellation, ‘Thunderbolt Divine King,’ activates the stigmata, ‘All-Seeing Eye’!]

The Constellations gasped in shock.

[All-Seeing Eye]. It was the stigmata Indra—called “Heavenly King Sakra”—used when drawing out his true power.

[Don’t tell me Indra is serious against that tiny transcendent.]

From Indra’s body, swollen massively in the sky, a thousand eyes were opening one by one.

According to myth, the moment all thousand eyes fully opened, Indra’s incarnation body could wield the full power of his true body.

Giving Indra time to bring out his complete power was nothing but suicide.

But Kyrios waited for him.

As if he’d sensed Kyrios’ intent, Indra let out a strange laugh.

[Insolent bastard. You truly want to cross blades with me for real?]

A thousand eyes on Indra’s body shone. The vajra-like relic he produced spun violently, and a [Heaven-and-Earth Thunderstorm] of an entirely different scale poured down.

A single strike that could grind an entire planet’s surface to dust and turn the whole region into a sea.

Before that overwhelming baptism of thunder, Kyrios opposed it alone.

“From the universe’s point of view, it’s nothing more than an event as small as dust.”

With that quiet voice, Kyrios’ relic, “Pure White Paradox,” let out a fierce wail.

White Azure Gate.

Secretly Transmitted Ultimate Art.

A technique Kyrios had never taught to anyone. More precisely, the White Azure Gate’s ultimate art that no one could learn.

Genesis Flash.

With a sound like the Big Bang, a single point was stamped into the pitch-black thunderstorm.

And the next moment, space-time around that point began to collapse.

A single streak of light that broke the rules of the heavens.

That streak dyed the sky bright—then extinguished the light.

Indra’s storm clouds evaporated in an instant, and pitch-black rain began to fall across the area.

And then—

[My God.]

Through the drifting raindrops, Indra’s gigantic incarnation body was revealed. More than half of the thousand eyes he boasted were burning black or had burst.

Moments later, Indra, wobbling as he lost his balance, began to fall.

[Heavenly King Sakra… lost?]

Before the shocking sight of the head of the <Lokapala> losing, the ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) Constellations couldn’t close their mouths.

Of course, Kyrios hadn’t come through unscathed either. To bring down Indra at full power, he had to give up one arm, and he’d taken deep wounds across his back and chest. Even so, the fact that he’d subdued Indra with only injuries like that was itself beyond common sense.

Even if the current commander-class figures of the Transcendent Alliance were the strongest transcendents, it would be hard for them to perform this well against the head of the <Lokapala>.

And yet there were two reasons it had been possible.

First, the incarnation bodies they had possessed were “optimal bodies” based on the difficulty of the “final scenario.”

And second—

[Due to the consumption effect of ‘Murim Dumplings,’ the proficiency of all skills has greatly increased!]

A “buff” was in place that let every function dwelling in those bodies manifest at the highest level.

Kyrios scanned the battlefield.

He was searching for the insolent disciple who had gifted him this body.

How long did he look?

Beyond the raining meteors, he spotted a slender mannequin running toward somewhere.

By now, Cheok Jun-gyeong had come to Kyrios’ side, looking at the same sight.

“He’s a truly strange one. Don’t you think?”

「One person who created this miraculous scene—where all humanity gathers to oppose the stars of the night sky.」

His disciple was finally entering the Ark, to confirm the conclusion of this “time stratum.”