Chapter 54
Heavenly Lake Workshop (3)
Clatter—
Sehyun placed the soul stone before Halma.
“You got back fast. Did you actually handle it properly?”
“Come on, what do you take me for?”
“…Well, this chill definitely belongs to that boss.”
Her reaction was understandable.
It was a rift the workshop hadn’t been able to touch for over a decade —
they’d barely managed to suppress the frost leaking from it, let alone seal it.
And yet, Sehyun had resolved it in less than an hour.
Anyone would find that hard to believe.
Not that I wasn’t just as dumbfounded myself.
Sehyun had expected Sasha to be the perfect fit for that particular rift.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have stepped forward so confidently.
But what he hadn’t expected was the sheer power she displayed.
She’d undergone the succession ceremony only a short while ago,
and yet she could already wield stellar energy as though she’d been born to it.
Now, Sehyun fully understood why, in his past life, Hailhwan had feared her succession so much.
“So— how’s the blueprint coming along?”
“Thanks to you dropping that headache of a design on me, I’ve had quite a time.”
Halma sighed and laid the blueprint on the table with a wry smile.
It was titled [Chamseongdan (塹星壇)] — the Altar of the Trapped Stars.
It was an installable artifact meant to sit before the central core and regulate the magma’s heat in place of the rift.
“This structure… you based it on an ancient Gojoseon altar. And the bronze dagger you brought earlier too— you seem fond of that old stuff.”
“Well, what can I say… there’s a certain classical dignity to it, don’t you think?”
Halma nodded, clearly pleased.
Sehyun knew her tastes well. She had a fondness for the aesthetics of old mythic Korea.
Though it wasn’t just about flattering her.
The reason he chose to model the Chamseongdan after the altar supposedly built by Dangun, the founder of ancient Gojoseon,
was because they were standing on Mount Baekdu itself.
“Hwanung descended with 3,000 followers beneath the sacred tree atop Mount Taebaek.”
In that ancient record, Taebaek was an old name for Mount Baekdu.
So if any design could embody that myth, this was the one.
“You see these thick metallic cables extending from the altar’s sides to the central core?
They’re made to conduct stellar energy at the highest efficiency, channeling it into the altar.”
When activated, the Chamseongdan would draw stellar energy from the magma through those cables.
The heat would be absorbed by the altar’s Nakyeol stone bricks,
and the purified stellar energy—stripped of its heat—would collect in the soul stone set in the altar’s center.
“With that gathered energy, the altar reactivates itself in a perfect cycle.
It not only regulates the heat but also recycles the stellar energy.”
“I can see that much from the plans, boy. I was asking about the artifact itself—how it actually works.”
“Hm…”
What she really meant was: what’s the underlying principle of this thing?
The blueprint was full of detailed notes—
Halma’s own attempts to reverse-engineer Sehyun’s design.
Given her nature, there was no way she’d let something like this sit unexplained.
Sehyun skimmed through the notes, then tilted his head slightly.
“Huh… I thought you might’ve noticed by now.”
“Noticed what?”
“Didn’t this design remind you of something?
Something that draws out a specific power through stellar energy?”
In his previous life, Sehyun had gone to Halma to learn artifact-forging not just for fun.
After all, if Hailhwan had invented the concept of artifacts,
and Sehyun had been the only one able to make them,
then Halma had been the one using such power long before the word “artifact” even existed.
Her eyes twitched.
“…You’re talking about talismans, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“…Now that you mention it, there is a resemblance.
Not only in the structure modeled after an ancient altar, but even this written chant here—”
“That’s right. It’s there to link the power of the altar to its myth.”
He had written specific incantations to be recited when activating the Chamseongdan.
Stellar energy was life energy itself.
And myths were the recorded footprints of life.
By reenacting a mythic story through ritual words and actions,
one could awaken that story’s power—
that was the foundation of Primordial Myth Arts.
Just as the Chamseongdan was once used to pray for peace over ancient Joseon,
this version would suppress Baekdu’s unrest.
Halma, too, had always invoked an incantation when using her talismans—
beginning with “Heaven and Earth spirits, hear my call—”
She was reenacting the myth of the Heavenly Gods descending to bring order and prosperity—
using talismans as the medium.
The principle was identical to that of Sehyun’s artifacts.
Her insight didn’t stop there.
“Then that’s why you insisted we ourselves build it, isn’t it?
Myths and lived experience differ by one thing—the presence of the original actors.”
“Oh… I didn’t expect you to get that far.”
Sehyun was genuinely impressed.
Halma was absolutely right.
Their years of forging countless weapons in the Heavenly Lake Workshop—
that experience itself had become a kind of living myth.
It would fuse naturally into the artifact’s creation.
Her lips curled into a grin.
“Well, I still can’t make sense of a few details…”
“You’ll understand once you actually make it.”
This would be the first artifact ever forged by someone other than Sehyun himself.
He was a little excited to see how it turned out.
“Then could you gather the smiths, please?
Preferably the non-players among them…”
But then—
Ruuumble—!
Mount Baekdu trembled again.
“What now?!”
A young apprentice came running, breath ragged.
“Haa… haa… Halma! The central core— the rift— it’s going wild again!”
Sehyun and Halma rushed to the heart of the forge.
The central chamber was in chaos—
no, even worse than before.
“Gyaaah!!!”
“It’s a monster!!”
Small demon-like creatures, about the size of children,
covered in black fur with sharp tails flicking behind them—
Imps.
Creatures that should not exist in the human world were spilling from the rift.
“Grab your hammers—! Ghhkk!!”
One of them landed on a blacksmith’s shoulder,
and with a whip of its tail, pierced straight through his chest.
Ki-ke-ke-ke-ke!!!
The air rang with their maddening, mocking laughter.
Then—
Crack—!
An imp’s head exploded as an icicle skewered it from behind.
“They’re in the way! Everyone, get out!!”
Ch-ch-chk!
A wall of ice rose up before the blacksmiths as Sasha stepped forward,
her voice ringing cold.
“Ледяные клыки!!! (Ice Fangs!!!)”
Dozens of icicles burst from the wall and scattered like a storm of bullets.
Kiieeeek!!!
Grrrraaaak!!!
The imps shrieked as they were impaled and fell writhing to the ground.
A few managed to dodge and charged at her.
Then, a snow-like gust swept through—
and a transparent spear pierced through the imps, spilling black-red blood.
Standing at its end were Kang Jia and her unicorn.
“Sasha unni, are you okay?!”
“Who’s worrying about who? Stay back.”
She spoke gruffly,
but ruffled Jia’s hair with her bare hand all the same.
Meanwhile, Sehyun decapitated another imp and approached her.
“What are these things? I thought we sealed the rift?”
“Yeah. We definitely killed the boss.”
The proof—the chilled soul stone—was still in his hand.
He’d even seen the rift collapse before leaving.
“I can’t be certain yet, but… I have a hunch.”
“What kind of hunch, Sehyun?”
“When you hit these things—didn’t you feel something?”
“Feel…?”
Before Sasha could answer, Jia’s eyes widened.
“I did! It was like… my energy was draining out of me.”
“Don’t tell me…”
Sasha frowned deeply.
“These pests— they’re Chaotic, aren’t they?”
“Seems that way.”
For Sasha, that name carried bitter memories.
In Vladivostok, she’d suffered greatly because of the Kraken that had evolved into a Chaotic-type.
“Still, don’t worry. This won’t be like last time.”
At her current level, Sasha could handle the Chaotic effect easily.
Her stellar energy reserves were massive after the succession,
so even if the imps absorbed some, it wouldn’t matter.
And besides—
CRASH!
The blacksmiths had regrouped and joined the fight,
their hammers smashing into the little demons.
“They’re nothing! Don’t back down!”
The same hammers that once forged molten steel now caved in skulls.
But even after their heads were shattered, the imps twitched and rose again.
“They— they’re not dying!!”
“Their skulls are reforming!”
They weren’t players—
and without stellar energy, they couldn’t kill monsters completely.
That was why, during the Apocalypse, ordinary humans had stood no chance.
But the blacksmiths of the Heavenly Lake Workshop were no ordinary men.
“Then we’ll just keep smashing ‘em, you idiots!”
“Got it!!”
SMASH!
Their brute-force hammering turned imp skulls to pulp again and again.
Sasha clicked her tongue and shook her head.
“Tch. They could’ve just run.”
“You don’t know how proud these people are.”
Even if Mount Baekdu itself crumbled,
these men would die with their forge.
Sehyun knew that better than anyone.
“…Hmph. Fine, let ‘em do what they want.”
Still grumbling, she gathered her energy again—
and unleashed another storm of ice upon the enemy.
Whoooosh—! Crack!
When the smiths sent the imps flying,
Sasha’s icicles rained down to finish them off.
Meanwhile, Sehyun pressed forward, cutting through the swarm—
toward the central core.
I need to find out what’s really going on.
The danger wasn’t just the imps.
If they’d closed the rift, yet more creatures were emerging,
then that meant… another rift had opened.
If it were a new one, that was simple enough—just close it again.
But if it was what Sehyun suspected…
Then things were about to get very messy.
Normally, a rift opened when a boss monster’s overwhelming stellar energy
tore open the fabric of space, forming a kind of wormhole between dimensions.
So, when the boss died, the rift naturally sealed soon after.
But if this were a Chaotic Rift—formed under specific conditions—
then it was different.
If the space torn by the boss re-ripped itself open,
and Chaotic stellar energy was detected there—
then its energy-absorbing nature would distort the area,
creating bizarre and troublesome phenomena.
That was exactly what Sehyun feared.
If his theory was right,
the rift should show residual traces of stellar energy—
but no living source.
“…Please, let me be wrong about this.”
Holding his breath, he examined the fissure among the magma—
And then his face hardened.
“…Damn it.”
BOSS-MISSING Crevice.
A rift without a boss.
A rift that could not be closed had appeared.
