THE NEBULA'S CIVILIZATION

Chapter 255: Starry Night

Giant ice rocks, traveling at kilometers per second, ignored various atmospheric layers and fell like rain.

'Since they're ice chunks falling from the sky, could they be meteorologically classified as hail?'

Sung-Woon cast his gaze into the distance for a moment. Though there was some distance to the center of the Rasdasil Ruins, due to several layers of protective magic circles that warded off the Meteor Shower spell, there seemed to be no significant impact on the outskirts.

'Fortunately, it doesn't seem like the central part of the Rasdasil Ruins was affected, but...'

Sung-Woon assessed the changes in the terrain brought about by the Meteor Shower.nOVelbIn

In just a few seconds, the area beneath where the ice rocks struck was clouded in dust and steam. The magic circles blocking the Meteor Shower were now starting to dissipate, but the altered landscape was likely to remain for some time.

However, these changes didn’t block Sung-Woon's vision. A Hierophany body's sight exceeded human visible light, extending to infrared and ultraviolet, naturally corrected for Sung-Woon. The landscape, as seen through this enhanced vision, showed that the ground where Hegemonia had been standing had sunk by about one hundred meters.

'I thought such an attack might impact a Hierophany body...'

Sung-Woon clicked his tongue lightly.

In his vision, Hegemonia remained unmoved as she was. It seemed to be a result of Sung-Woon’s magic having no divinity despite him being the god of magic, as well as Hegemonia's defensive skill, which had not yet been fully revealed.

'But this narrows it down a bit.'

Therefore, Sung-Woon was not surprised when Hegemonia emerged from the pit, accompanied by an aurora.

'Space Cut to slash through the barrier, Skip to close the distance...'

A massive white stone pillar shot from Sung-Woon's hand. Though it appeared to be merely projecting mass, the outer surface of this summoned pillar was densely inscribed with calculations that a typical Wizard would carefully inscribe during a ritual.

The moment it came into contact with Hegemonia, the pillar split, projecting the light created by that division in all directions. Typical division magic literally turned the target into dust, but Sung-Woon found such magic inefficient. Moreover, such pure magical formulas would be ineffective against a Hierophany body sustained by divine power.

With his understanding of nuclear fission, he knew that attempting to divide a target with division magic consumed too much causality. Magic, like divinity, always evolved to avoid causality constraints. Sung-Woon applied the division magic to the inanimate white stone pillar, releasing all constraints imposed by causality while maintaining the massive explosion produced by nuclear fission. Although the uranium content inside the white pillar wasn’t substantial due to the limits of causality, it was enough for a localized nuclear strike.

The first atomic nuclei collapsed due to magic, and the energy created by fusion exploded in light, electromagnetic fields, and heat.

'As expected.'

However, the light did not reach Hegemonia. The rays were twisted and absorbed by an invisible barrier surrounding Hegemonia, extinguished in the process.

'...Is it Entropy?'

Sung-Woon identified it as Entropy, one of the Hierophany body skills in The Lost World. Although it was an excellent defensive skill that blocked various projectiles and attacks, it had a weakness—it consumed Faith points with each attack it blocked, which essentially defeated the purpose of a defensive skill for a Hierophany body.

Since a Hierophany body could recover as long as there were Faith points, even though Entropy consumed relatively less faith, with Faith points being used for both health and defense when a Hierophany body regenerated, Entropy’s cost wasn’t significantly lower to make it a better choice.

But regardless, Entropy was a frequently used skill.

-Realized it, have you?

Hegemonia spoke and swung her sword, which Sung-Woon blocked. Five successive sword strikes, all skipped, came almost simultaneously. Given the concerted attack was physically impossible to dodge, Sung-Woon took the hits.

Sung-Woon's dummy was ripped apart, and he reappeared at a distance from Hegemonia.

Sung-Woon thought.

'There was a reason for stalling.'

While Sung-Woon could predict Hegemonia's combat moves, the overall actions didn't quite make sense. Considering Hegemonia's goal, defeating Sung-Woon's Hierophany body was important, but the primary objective seemed to be invading the central part of the Rasdasil Ruins. Defeating Sung-Woon without collapsing the Rasdasil Ruins wouldn’t be a significant gain.

'But using that skill means...'

A feature of Entropy was its ability to accumulate stacks. In The Lost World, certain types of skills required more than just consuming Faith points. No matter how high the Divinity level, how strong the Hierophany body, or how much Faith points remained, some skills couldn’t be used. These types of skills required an additional resource beyond Divinity, known as stacks. Entropy could accumulate a stack called thermal energy each time it received an attack.

The problem was that Sung-Woon couldn’t prevent the accumulation.

Sung-Woon also used his fourth skill. His cloak slightly fluttered.

Hegemonia failed to notice the flutter. She was simply bewildered that she couldn't skip the sequence of swinging her sword.

'What's this? It's like...'

It was like being caught. If held by another player, one couldn’t use Skip.

The Incarnation of Hegemonia tried to activate Space Cut, but the blade hardly moved. Hegemonia belatedly realized that the sky was melting.

-...This is?

The sky slowly melted, gently rotated, and flowed. The spreading light was too beautiful. Then it was revealed that the melted sky was just a thin, delicate curtain. In its midst, a being wrapped in the curtain bowed, hood pressed down.

-...Nebula! This is...!

-Incarnation.

-But you didn’t...

-I did stack.

The One Overshadowed by the Sky said,

-My death and my blood became the offering.

The One Who Sacrificed Oneself continued.

-What to stack for becoming an Incarnation is up to the player.

Hegemonia tried to shout.

With a skill like Shedding, it was too easy a condition. It didn’t even consume Faith points.

But strangely, before she could speak and belatedly realizing Sung-Woon had the skill Future Sight, Hegemonia heard the Preceding Viewer's words.

-So my Incarnation, other than holding you, has no power.

Before War could retort about how that would even be useful then, the Purposeless One added.

-And that's enough.

War, Hegemonia, realized three truths.

If all the space above the ground was the sky, then Hegemonia herself was already in the arms of Sung-Woon, and not only Hegemonia but all beings on this earth would be the same, and the third was...

But the One Who Makes Purpose said.

-With what little Faith resources remain, it's difficult to just defeat you. I must sweep away all the apostles and armies of the Angry One.

Hegemonia felt her mind clearing up. Sung-Woon wanted not just to defeat Hegemonia herself, but aimed for a more perfect victory.

Then the third truth dawned. Sung-Woon could use the Light of Pasa on anyone he came into contact with.

-Oh.

The stars twinkled.

Constellations slowly moving in the night sky's shimmered; heroes and greats of the past, those who were ordinary but memorable for their deeds, those who became lessons in other's lives through unparalleled tragedies, those with sad and happy stories—all lights that people thought were part of themselves—twinkled.

The night sky spoke.

-See you again.

War was enveloped in light.