Chapter 16: The Hall of Glory

Kwaaaaaaaaaaah!

A pillar of black-red fire rose from my left hand.

At the same time, the armor vibrated.

The special effect of the Heavenly Demon Armor.

Heavenly Demon Aura.

As that overwhelming pressure spread in all directions.

“Ki-kieeek?”

“Grrrr…… Yelp!”

The wolves charging toward me came to an abrupt stop.

The tips of the ice soldiers’ spears began to tremble.

The monsters retreated.

It was instinctive fear.

And that wasn’t all.

An impossible scene unfolded before my eyes.

Ssssssshhh!

The snowstorm falling from the sky began to evaporate above my head.

The snowflakes turned into white vapor before they could even touch me.

The ground began to boil.

Black flames erupted from the cracks in the asphalt.

Land Where Hellfire Boils.

The moment that Authority activated, the laws of this area changed completely.

The domain of ice was erased.

And in its place appeared the domain of brutal, savage heat.

The rules created by a god were crushed by the power of an even stronger god.

I began to walk.

The flames opened a path with every step I took.

Kieeeeeeeek!

One of the ice soldiers that failed to escape brushed against the flames.

Everything happened in an instant.

Kyaagh!

Along with a scream, the monster’s body began to melt.

And at the same time, it burned.

Because Hellfire was a flame that burned not only matter, but also souls.

But there was something even stranger.

Fwoooooosh!

The flames swept across nearby trees and buildings.

But the trees did not burn.

The signs did not melt either.

The flames targeted only the monsters.

Only those creatures born from the disaster turned into black ash and disintegrated.

The fire ignited only where my killing intent was directed.

‘The path has opened.’

3 kilometers.

It wasn’t a short distance.

But there were no longer any obstacles.

I calmly walked across the red carpet created by the flames.

The monsters pushed aside on both sides trembled as they lowered their heads.

Like lesser monsters witnessing the procession of a Demon King.

And finally.

In the very center of the city.

I arrived in front of the largest building.

Unlike the others, the entrance to this place was completely blocked.

A thick wall of transparent ice.

The source of the cold.

‘So this is where you were hiding.’

I smiled faintly.

I placed my left hand against the ice wall.

Fwaaaaaash!

Heat exploded from my palm.

The magical ice, supposedly harder than steel, began to melt like sugar touching boiling water.

A hole opened.

A passage large enough for a person to walk through.

I entered immediately.

An empty lobby.

Only the cold filled the surroundings.

And at the center.

I saw a man sitting on a chair made of ice.

His eyes were closed.

As if he were meditating.

Perhaps he sensed my presence, because he slowly opened his eyes.

“……How noisy.”

A voice filled with irritation.

I confirmed the man’s face.

And at that moment.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

‘I know that face.’

It was a face I knew far too well.

Crack!

Without realizing it, I ground my teeth.

The sound of my bones creaked inside my clenched fist.

“……Kim Insu.”

The name left my mouth as if I were spitting it out.

A name impossible to forget.

A name I must never forget.

‘So it was you?’

A feeling of betrayal pierced through me.

It felt as though my blood were flowing backward.

Kim Insu.

He was my companion in my previous life.

And not just any companion.

One of the 500 elites who ran alongside me toward the highest floor of the tower within humanity’s last resistance force.

Although Kim Insu was eliminated during the early stages of the tower.

‘Now I understand.’

At last, all the pieces fit together.

Memories of the past flashed through my mind like a movie.

The 27th floor of the tower.

A hellish labyrinth ruled by snowstorms and extreme cold.

There, we suffered irreparable losses.

And it was all because of Kim Insu.

— Ah, my mistake! My side got breached!

— Sorry, Jeongseok! My cooldown got messed up!

Far too serious to have been an accident.

Three companions died because of just one of his “mistakes.”

Back then, I thought he was simply incompetent or unlucky.

But.

‘It was intentional.’

At every crucial moment, he ruined everything.

He subtly destroyed formations and blocked his allies’ escape routes.

And during the most important battle against the 27th floor boss.

He disappeared.

After the fight, he never returned to us covered in blood.

He was declared missing.

We thought he had died.

We never found his body, but surviving in that chaos seemed impossible.

But he was alive.

No.

From the very beginning, there was no way he could have died.

Because he was the owner of that floor.

I slowly began to approach him.

The killing intent within the armor roared like a storm.

“Who are you? How do you know my name? And that temperature—were you the one who caused all this?”

Kim Insu frowned.

Instead of answering, I looked him directly in the eyes.

And slowly opened my mouth.

“You are ‘Caligo,’ aren’t you?”

“……!!”

His reaction confirmed it.

The owner of the 27th floor, the God of the Snowstorm, Caligo.

Kim Insu was Caligo’s avatar.

‘……Hah.’

Damn it.

I hoped it wasn’t true.

At the very least, I hoped it wasn’t them.

The last resistance force.

Humanity’s final hope.

I hoped there weren’t spies from those bastards among them.

But everything had been twisted from the start.

Kim Insu was an avatar.

Then what about the others? What about the Sword Emperor? And the Great Sage?

There was no way to know.

‘So it was doomed from the very beginning.’

I knew we couldn’t win.

But this meant that from the very beginning, we had been fighting a battle that was impossible to win.

We had only been dancing in the palm of their hands.

Kim Insu opened his mouth.

“Who the hell are you?”

His face showed obvious confusion.

“I understand how you know my avatar’s name, but how do you know the name of my original body? I’ve never told anyone. No one should know it.”

His eyes narrowed.

“What faction do you belong to?”

Factions.

That faction nonsense again.

Kim Yuhwan, the lesser god of earthquakes Kartal, said the same thing before he died.

They’re obsessed with factions and affiliations.

Because that defines their hierarchy and their order.

It wasn’t even worth answering.

I raised my left hand.

Wooooooong!

The black-red flames ignited once more.

The Authority, Land Where Hellfire Boils.

Kwaaaaaaaaaah!

Explosive heat engulfed the entire lobby.

The ice chair evaporated instantly.

The marble floor began to melt and flow like lava.

“……?!”

Kim Insu’s eyes filled with horror.

He hastily unleashed a wave of cold, but it was useless.

Fwoosh!

Everything it touched was erased.

No.

It was being devoured.

My Hellfire consumed his cold and expanded its territory.

“T-this is…… domain overwriting?”

Kim Insu stepped back.

“That’s impossible! How can a mere avatar erase my domain?!”

I smiled faintly.

“Thank you.”

“……What?”

“Thanks to you, I was able to confirm something.”

I clenched my fist.

“That I have to kill all of you.”

Kim Insu’s face twisted.

He had sensed the danger.

If this continued, he would die.

Instinctively, he understood that too.

“You damned bastard……”

He ground his teeth.

“Do you know how much effort I invested in this avatar? I’m not going to let trash like you destroy it.”

As he stared at me, he muttered.

“From what I can see, you’re not normal. Did you feed your avatar nectar? You stuffed it with divine power like a lunatic.”

A misunderstanding.

But I had no intention of correcting him.

Wooooooong!

Golden light began to flow from Kim Insu’s body.

It was similar to my Descent.

But different.

Mine was a bright and pure gold.

His was a murky, dull yellow.

“Die!”

Kim Insu extended his hand.

Booom!

A gigantic spear of ice appeared.

A spear of absolute zero capable of freezing even the soul, loaded with divine power.

But.

‘Slow.’

To my eyes, it looked motionless.

The absurd stat increase from the Heavenly Demon Armor.

My physical abilities were already far beyond human.

I didn’t dodge.

I charged straight forward.

Craaaash!

I shattered the ice spear with a single punch.

“W-what the hell?!”

Kim Insu’s eyes looked ready to burst out of their sockets.

Fragments of ice flew everywhere.

Without stopping, I lunged for his throat.

Whoosh!

The distance closed instantly.

“Khgh……!”

Kim Insu raised an ice shield.

Craaaash!

The shield tore apart like paper.

I smashed through the ice fragments and grabbed his neck.

Then I slammed him into the ground.

Boom!

“Kuheok!”

Kim Insu coughed up blood.

I mounted him.

I raised my right hand.

The golden runes spun frantically as they shone intensely.

Wiiiiiiiiing!

It was time to devour.

“Y-you…… that hand……”

Kim Insu looked at my right hand, and all color drained from his face.

He understood.

He realized that it wasn’t a simple offensive skill.

It was the power of a natural predator capable of threatening his very existence.

“No! D-don’t come closer!”

He struggled desperately.

But the pressure of the Heavenly Demon Aura crushed his limbs.

Without a trace of emotion, I placed my palm over his face.

“Enjoy your meal, Caligo.”

“Aaaaaah!”

A bloodcurdling scream erupted.

It wasn’t simple pain.

“M-my power……! My connection to my original body……!”

Everything was being absorbed.

Not just the avatar’s mana.

Even the divinity of the original body that existed on the 27th floor of the Tower of Asgard.

As if I were drinking it all through a straw, ripping it out from the roots.

“W-what the hell are you?! How can you devour divinity?!”

Kim Insu’s face began to shrivel.

He was aging rapidly.

His life force was being exhausted.

“Stop! Please! Forgive me! I’ll give you anything you want!”

He begged.

A miserable and cowardly plea.

Exactly like when he betrayed us and ran away in my previous life.

I smiled coldly.

“No.”

I tightened my grip.

“Leave everything behind and disappear.”

Kwaaaaaaaaaah!

The golden vortex finally calmed down.

What had once been Kim Insu.

The existence that had been Caligo’s avatar disappeared without a trace.

Only gray ashes remained floating in the air.

Ding!

[You have devoured the disaster, the lesser god of Snowstorms, Caligo.]

[You have absorbed his divinity.]

[You can now permanently use the Authority, Extreme Blizzard.]

Perfect.

After fire and earth, I had now obtained ice as well.

That meant I now possessed the three great elements of the natural disaster system.

‘Perfect.’

And then.

A series of messages began to fill my vision.

[Warning. The mana concentration in this region has exceeded the critical limit.]

[Regional Episode 2, “Frozen Daegu,” has begun.]

Episode 2.

Originally, everything was supposed to start now.

The scenario where the army of ice summoned by Caligo would seize the city while people desperately fought to survive through fear and cold.

But.

Ding!

[The main boss “Caligo” has been eliminated.]

[Episode 2, “Frozen Daegu,” has ended.]

It ended the very moment it began.

No.

More accurately, it ended before it could even begin.

As soon as the source of the disaster disappeared, the changes in the outside world happened immediately as well.

I looked out the window.

The snowstorm that had been raging wildly came to an abrupt stop.

The ice soldiers and snow wolves wandering the streets collapsed and melted into water.

The black clouds vanished, and the bright summer sun illuminated the city once more.

The city went from winter to summer in an instant.

Even the system seemed confused and remained silent for a moment.

Then, along with a shrill alarm, new messages appeared.

[Calculating completion time.]

[Unable to measure.]

[Time required: 0.00 seconds.]

[Unable to calculate contribution.]

[System error.]

It was the obvious result.

I had handed in the answer sheet before they even distributed the exam, so the system had no reason to grade it.

But the system was absolute.

Even if an error occurred, it was obligated to grant a reward corresponding to the result.

[Although the completion was abnormal, the result is clear.]

[The system directly awards Rank 1.]

[You have set an impossible record.]

[Rolling dice (1~110).]

[110. A hidden reward is granted.]

Hidden reward.

As always, extraordinary rewards are only given when you do what no one else can.

I looked expectantly at the next message.

And then.

‘……Jackpot!’

Craaack!

The moment I confirmed the reward, I clenched my fist tightly.

Because it truly was a reward worthy of being called “hidden.”