Chapter 57
Black Dwarf
“Was this part of your plan too?”
“I thought it might happen… but not like this.”
Sasha’s question made Sehyun scratch the back of his head awkwardly.
‘Damn it, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t even supposed to enter the rift in the first place.’
Without the altar properly set up and with imps rampaging everywhere, it was nearly impossible to proceed as planned.
Someone had to play bait.
“You mean… you’re going to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll go with you. You just focus on—”
“No.”
Sehyun cut her off sharply.
“I’m going in alone. Sasha, you need to hold the line here.”
Even if he went in as bait, there was no guarantee that not a single imp would slip out.
The blacksmiths couldn’t possibly handle the imps outside, and Granny needed to stay focused on maintaining the seals.
That left only Sasha who could deal with the ones that escaped.
“Then I’ll go with you at least!”
Kang Jia grabbed his sleeve, but Sehyun shook his head.
“I have to go alone. To use that thing.”
“…Ah.”
Her gaze fell to the black dwarf sealed in the jar.
She must’ve remembered what she’d seen earlier because her hand flinched back slightly.
Sasha tilted her head.
“That thing?”
“…It’s just… something that feels wrong. Unsettling.”
Jia’s expression darkened, the unease still fresh in her mind.
‘Unsettling, huh.’
Considering the myth sealed within the Black Dwarf, that was understandable.
It contained the essence of a star far beyond the realm of ordinary celestial power, forcibly crammed into form using “the Dust of the Sage.”
A naturally cursed energy leaked from it.
‘And since she’s a Tamer, she must be more sensitive to that kind of aura.’
If she reacted just by seeing it, bringing her along was out of the question.
“Jia, just support Sasha. You can feel how the Chaotics absorb stellar energy, right?”
“…Yes.”
“Then avoid attacking directly. Just focus on distraction. That’s more than enough.”
“…Got it. Be careful, oppa.”
Tap, tap—
He lightly patted her shoulder and headed toward the rift’s core.
“Please, Granny.”
“Be careful, child.”
The old woman split the molten lava flow with her talisman, revealing the rift.
Beyond the searing red magma, an abyssal black world shimmered.
Sehyun stepped through the boundary.
“…Here…”
A familiar scene unfolded before him.
A mountain so high it touched the clouds. A lake nestled in its crater.
It was unmistakably Baekdu Mountain’s Heavenly Lake.
‘…Except it’s completely corrupted.’
The black sludge beneath his boots bubbled like tar, releasing choking fumes with every pop.
Above stretched a violet, deathly sky swarming with countless imps like a cloud of mosquitoes.
It looked like hell itself.
Kikekekekeke!
Keeeeeeeh!
The ones that had escaped yesterday were only a fraction of the swarm.
The entire sky was black with them.
Just imagining what would happen if they all broke through chilled his spine.
Shing—
He drew a blade from the jar on his back and hurled it at one of the flying imps.
Shraaaak!
Crunch!
The sword pierced through the belly of one, and the others froze, staring at the falling body.
Kek?
Keeek!
The corpse landed right next to Sehyun.
Their eyes turned to him.
Kiiiiieeeeek!!!
Then came the screech, like steel being torn apart, as the entire swarm descended.
They came like a black hurricane, an ocean of wings and teeth.
Most people would have panicked at the sight.
But Sehyun grinned.
“Good. Keep your attention on me.”
Ziiiing—
The bracelet on his wrist glowed as he extended his hand toward the jar beside him.
Shwaaaa—!
An enormous wave of black spears shot out, streaking into the sky.
Kiaaaak!
Kkiek!
Kekek!
They tore through the swarm like a storm of arrows.
“It’s not over yet.”
The spears that reached the sky began to hover, glittering like stars in the purple heavens.
Sehyun swung his hand down.
“Meteor Shower.”
Chchchchchchch—!!!
Crash! Boom! Crackle!
A rain of meteors fell upon the imps.
Screams echoed everywhere as the storm of blades annihilated the horde.
When it ended, the sky rained blackened corpses, piling like a mountain at his feet.
But it wasn’t time to relax yet.
Kiiiiieeeek!!!
Another roar came from the rift’s center.
“…So it’s not over after all. You never know when to quit, do you?”
A new wave of imps appeared in the distance.
Sehyun extended his hand.
The swords lodged in the ground and corpses lifted once more, then fired forward.
Shshshshshsh—!
Kieeeek!
The clash was brief.
Soon, a few imps broke through the barrage.
But instead of attacking Sehyun, they flew past him—straight toward the exit.
‘…What?’
They ignored him completely, driven by some singular instinct.
‘Impossible. Lower imps shouldn’t be capable of coordinated behavior.’
There had to be something commanding them.
‘But there wasn’t any boss-level presence when we scanned the rift.’
Still, this was a Chaotic Rift. Anything could happen.
“Guess I’ll have to check myself.”
He pressed forward, cutting down stragglers as he advanced toward the lake’s center—
—and there, he saw it.
“A… stone gate?”
In the middle of the black lake stood a massive stone door.
It was enormous, unlike anything he’d seen—
—but strangely familiar.
“This looks exactly like the entrance to the Celestial Workshop.”
He brushed a hand along its basalt surface.
Even the coarse texture matched perfectly.
‘So there’s something underneath, too…’
As he pondered, the door began to tremble.
Rumble…!
The massive slabs creaked open, sucking the black sludge inside.
Moments later, a deep rumble shook the world.
Kwoooooooooh!
Something enormous rose from the depths.
‘No… not a single creature.’
It was a massive serpent-like form made of thousands of imps fused together by sludge.
‘So that’s what’s been replacing the boss.’
Its scattered stellar energy explained why he hadn’t detected it.
Like a nebula—an agglomeration of dust and energy, not a single celestial body.
“Well, at least that means there’s no real boss.”
The creature opened its enormous maw.
Kwooooooooh!
And from that abyss poured an unending swarm of imps—
—all flying straight toward the rift exit.
Sehyun clenched his jaw.
“They just can’t wait to get out, huh? But I’m not letting that happen.”
Shing—!
He drew another blade from the jar, unleashing another storm of black spears.
Shshshshsh!
The barrage struck the creature’s body dead on—
—but the holes immediately filled with more imps.
A hive mind.
“Even the spears can’t hold up…”
The fallen blades corroded instantly, crumbling to dust.
Their stellar energy drained away.
If he kept this up, he’d run out of weapons before he made a dent.
“…Guess there’s no helping it.”
He clicked his tongue.
He’d wanted to stall until the altar was complete.
“Let’s just say this counts as urgent.”
He reached into the jar and drew out a much larger blade—
—a rough, pitch-black greatsword.
‘The Black Dwarf.’
Its deep obsidian hue gleamed faintly blue under the light. The only decoration was a simple Omega (Ω) sigil on its guard.
It was the greatest artifact Sehyun had ever forged in his past life.
‘It might be a pale imitation of the real one…’
Even if it held only one ten-thousandth of its original power—
—it was enough.
Because right now, he needed only one ability.
“In the void and chaos, a man drew his sword—”
He paused mid-chant.
Those were the opening words of the myth inscribed into the Black Dwarf.
But he couldn’t bring himself to finish the last line.
“…Back then, the ending went something like, ‘And thus began the legend.’ A hopeful future.”
A faint, bitter laugh escaped him.
What had he believed in back then?
He’d already witnessed the end that blade brought.
It wasn’t a beginning.
If he had to rewrite that scene—
“It would say: ‘And where the sword fell, neither heaven nor earth remained.’”
The memory of himself fleeing as the world was swallowed came unbidden.
Grip—
He clenched the sword tighter.
The heavy, steady weight felt alive in his hands.
And then came the pull—an immense gravity pressing down on everything.
The solemn, lonely power of a celestial body that had burned out its light and left only gravity behind—
—a black dwarf.
“Gravitational Field.”
He extended his left hand and yanked.
The massive serpent-body of imps was dragged helplessly toward him, scraping the sludge as it came.
Grooooar!
It twisted violently, trying to dodge the strike.
But Sehyun only smirked.
“You don’t actually think you dodged, do you?”
Shrrrrrip—!!!
The sword traced a line of pure darkness through space itself.
Reality tore open.
The creature turned, too late—
—and the rift began to devour everything around it.
Kieeeeeek!!!
The entire mass of imps screamed as they were sucked into the tear.
And that was only the beginning.
“This is where it starts.”
The annihilation of the swarm was merely the prelude to the end that the Black Dwarf always brought.
‘In the chaos and void, a man swung his sword—’
The only ending to follow was the collapse of heaven and earth.
“Time to move.”
He sprinted toward the exit.
Behind him, the rift was imploding.
The phenomenon unleashed by the Black Dwarf devoured not only the swarm but the rift itself.
Crack… crack…!
The once-vast Heavenly Lake shrank—half, a quarter, then again and again.
By the time Sehyun reached the boundary, only a fraction of it remained.
The rift’s mouth shimmered before him.
He paused and looked back.
Through the gash left by his swing, he saw the rift being consumed whole.
Crack—!
Crackle—!
“…Did that monster swallow the world like this too?”
The Event Horizon.
The point of no return.
A monster that devoured an entire world.
The sight mirrored that disaster perfectly.
A sigh slipped out.
As he stepped toward the exit—
He stopped.
“….”
He stared down at the black blade in his hand.
Then, without hesitation—
Whoosh!
He hurled it back into the collapsing rift.
It was a waste, maybe. But it didn’t matter.
He had forged that sword to hold the hope of a new world.
That hope had been crushed long ago.
Now, it carried only ruin.
‘…But still.’
Looking at the light before him, he thought differently.
When a man swung his sword at the end of chaos, the heavens fell just the same—
—but maybe the end of a world didn’t have to mean annihilation.
He turned his gaze toward the radiant exit ahead.
Perhaps it was the path he’d failed to take in his past life.
And that thought filled him with quiet anticipation.
“I hope this ending turns out a little better than the one I carved before.”
With a faint smile on his lips, Sehyun stepped into the light.
