“That being introduced itself as ‘Madmut.’”

Countless missiles pounded the ground. Thunder from every direction. With each impact the world shook as if struck by an earthquake.

The Last Eighteen stared dumbly at the sky.

Why? They couldn’t understand. Not at all.

Tens of thousands of hunters had given their lives to slay the Last Enemy. They were heroes of humanity — above politics, ideology, war.

And for thanks, they got a barrage of explosives.

Only when they stood at death’s threshold did they grasp the allied army’s intent: ‘Be buried with the monsters.’

And then, without warning, the world stopped.

The Last Eighteen opened their eyes in a space laced with streams of multicolored light. Seo Sihui described it as ‘a universe where an infinite meteor shower poured down.’

Every passing shooting star was a thread of time and space. Yes — it was the rift of spacetime. No one had explained it, but they knew instinctively.

The Last Enemy was there too.

It went by many names — Angolmois, Satan — but most hunters simply called it the Last Enemy.

Because they’d hoped nothing else lurked behind it.

<How absurd. Sacrifice yourselves for a noble cause and get fire sticks in return. That is the limit of you imperfect mortals. So quick to fracture before fear.>

The Last Enemy — who had never once spoken — reached out to them.

Not a voice in the air, but a message pressed directly into their minds. Even the Last Eighteen, veterans of every trial, found their jaws hanging open at the raw impossibility of it.

<You have failed. And I have failed. But failure does not mean the end of opportunity. You overcame the limits of mortality, and I value what you have become. So I offer you one proposal.>

“Who… what are you?”

<I am the largest piece of the universe. The most perfect among the imperfect. What you mortals call the sky, the world, the sun, or god. I am Madmut.>

At the name Madmut, Go Byeonggap swallowed without meaning to.

Seo Sihui’s throat must have been parched — she drank her tea and kept silent for a long while. She spoke again just as Byeonggap’s patience was fraying to its last thread.

“Madmut. He laid out his plan for us.”

“What plan?”

“He said… he would create a space. A perfect, flawless space where only paradise existed. A place where he alone could dwell.”

“A perfect, flawless space?”

“Yes. He named it the Heavenly Realm.”

‘Heavenly Realm!’

Another familiar word surfaced.

The Heavenly Realm was where a god and its servants lived. Just as demi-humans dwelled in the Mortal Realm and spirits in the Spirit Realm, a god lived in the Heavenly Realm.

Pity that rifling through Landriol’s memories yielded no more information than that.

Still, he could guess.

‘Madmut can only live in the Heavenly Realm? Wait — didn’t the old story say the demon that invaded the Mortal Realm ended up seizing the Heavenly Realm too?’

His mind spun fast.

‘Madmut, cast out of Asvillam, showed up on Earth. His goal is to build the Heavenly Realm. So that means…’

The chain of logic clicked into place. The conclusion came quickly.

He slammed the table and shouted.

“Damn it! Is that how it went?”

“How what went?”

Sihui knitted her brows at the out-of-context outburst.

“Kicked out of his own home, so he invaded Earth to make a new nest. Son of a bitch. So everything — all of it — was because of those demon bastards… Hah!?”

His muttering face went white as a sheet. Sihui frowned at his wild fluctuation.

Byeonggap trembled. A strangled sound slipped through his parted lips.

“The ones who summoned the demons… were the Saraon?”

* * *

Go Byeonggap found a horrifying piece of truth buried in Landriol’s memories.

It was from the time when Madmut’s curse befell their race, and Asvillam teetered on the edge of ruin.

Many believed that after Empress Barin’s departure, Landriol had shut himself away in a small room and fallen into catatonic seclusion. But that was not the truth.

Landriol wasn’t broken — he was relentless. Research upon research, all for vengeance.

And at last, he uncovered a single possibility. But it lay in forbidden territory — the domain of gods.

A mere creation had no business reaching for such things.

Yet Landriol did not retreat. With the destruction of his kingdom and the annihilation of his species looming, he had to do whatever a ruler could. There was nowhere left to fall back to.

On the night of the eclipse, when the world was swallowed by darkness, Landriol summoned the “Primal Demon.”

People thought of demons as nothing more than “unsettling lumps, neither alive nor dead.” That was an insult of monumental proportions.

The true nature of a demon was “a god’s shed skin.”

In the immeasurably ancient past — the husk a god had sloughed off to ascend to the Heavenly Realm.

In simpler terms, its essence was equal to a god’s.

The Primal Demon spoke.

—Why has a lowly creature of the earth awakened me?

—Make a pact with me. I will give you spirit and wisdom. In return, give me your power.

—I refuse.

—What? Why! You’ve simply existed for countless eons! I thought you would yearn for life!

—Our power is macrocosmic. Not something a micro-beast like you could endure. The world’s order will be overturned; chaos will follow — that is certain.

—Hmph! What reason could you have to worry about the world’s order? Be honest. Are you not simply afraid of Madmut?

—How dare you speak such—

—Have you not existed as nothing for eternity? Do you not wish to shed that cursed state? As you say, I am but a lowly creature. Yet I waged war against a god and captured seven Divine Warriors.

—Divine Warriors?

—Yes! Even I, a pitiful creature, could draw the blood of the Divine Army. How much less should you — who were once part of Madmut himself — have to fear anything under heaven? Even if you descended to the surface, Madmut could do nothing to you.

—…….

—Think. If he did not fear you, why would he have driven you into the lightless Underworld? Make a pact with me. I will help you exist as your own selves. In return, share just a fraction of your power.

After a long, heavy silence, the Primal Demon answered.

—I accept your proposal.

Landriol sacrificed the souls of thousands of Saraon to the demon. In return, he received a sliver of divine authority. Building on that new power, he laid the foundation for his eventual vengeance.

The “Ancient Shop” — that was his masterpiece, his greatest creation.

But even Landriol hadn’t foreseen this: the demon’s rampage.

‘Landriol didn’t see that far. He never imagined the demons would ravage the mortal realm and the spirit realm, then march into the heavenly realm too… He couldn’t have conceived it.’

The chain of calamity stretching from Asvillam to Earth.

Landriol stood at its origin. In other words, this whole affair began with a small stone he’d set rolling.

When that realization hit, Byeonggap felt his soul nearly leap out of his chest.

‘Landriol… you are one spectacularly crazy bastard.’

“What’s wrong? You’ve looked pale for a while now.”

Seo Sihui’s voice carried a thread of worry.

Byeonggap pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and pushed himself to his feet.

“Sorry, let’s take a breather.”

“Sure.”

He lit up against Mt. Cheondo’s biting wind. What started as a single cigarette inevitably bled into another, then another.

His thoughts were sinking deeper.

‘God, my head.’

Go Byeonggap wrestled with the question of whether he should feel responsible at all. Either conclusion left a sour aftertaste. His mind clouded like smoke from a cigarette.

In the end, he couldn’t tie the knot on his thoughts and trudged back to the log cabin.

The talk resumed. The moment Seo Sihui opened her mouth, Byeonggap realized he’d have to act—one way or another, and fast.

“That being, Madmut, says creating the heavenly realm requires a sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice? …Don’t tell me it’s what I think it is.”

“You’re probably right. Yes, the sacrifice is humanity. Alpha, would you bring me a map?”

“Yes, Master.”

Alpha, who’d been warming himself by the fire, snapped to attention and retrieved a map. Seo Sihui spread a world atlas across the table. She tapped a few spots with her finger.

“China, India, and the United States. These three locations have been chosen as the altars.”

“…Shit. Every single one’s bursting at the seams with population.”

“That’s right. You’re aware of the recent monster wave incident in Argentina, aren’t you.”

“Of course I know. It was no ordinary chaos.”

“The US has been indiscriminately accepting South American refugees. It was the same last year when a monster wave broke out in Africa. Outwardly, they claim it’s about refugee relief—”

“—but the reality is they’re gathering people to use as sacrifices?”

“That would be the reasonable conclusion. You could also interpret it as a faction pushing humanity toward extinction having infiltrated the US leadership.”

Go Byeonggap chewed his lip, then shot out a question.

“H-Hey! A monster wave is happening in Korea right now, isn’t it? What the hell is going on with that?”

Face stiff, Seo Sihui shook her head.

“I don’t know the exact details either. It could be a plan to relocate Koreans to China or the US… or it might just be a natural phenomenon.”

“A natural phenomenon?”

“Monsters haven’t emerged from rifts since Deep Impact. But last year, they suddenly appeared. That’s… not a mere anomaly.”

She murmured, her face rigid.

“It’s proof that this world has already transformed into an environment suitable for monsters to live in.”

“W-Why would something like that happen all of a sudden?”

“It’s not sudden. Over the past twenty-odd years, humanity has been running magic stone power plants. Those plants changed Earth’s environment.”

Go Byeonggap trembled like a man hit by a live wire.

“So that’s why you’ve been smashing those plants?”

“Right. Though it’s become meaningless now.”

She added, her tone heavy with sorrow.

“Blocking one hole among dozens doesn’t stop the flood from rising. I should have realized it sooner, but it’s too late.”

“Hah…”

Go Byeonggap let out a long sigh. He wanted to light a cigarette, but held back for the kids’ sake.

Seo Sihui continued calmly.

“Let me finish what I was saying earlier. Madmut revealed his plan and made us an offer. He said if we cooperated with him, he’d take us to the heavenly realm. And he awakened the hatred inside us—the hatred for those who betrayed us.”

“……”

“All of the Last Eighteen agreed to his plan. There was no reason to refuse. We were burning with betrayal and vengeance.”

“You too?”

“Of course. I wanted to kill every scheming human too. Do you think you wouldn’t have felt the same? Imagine fighting tooth and nail for humanity’s fate, only to be betrayed.”

“Well, yeah… I guess so.”

He could understand. He absolutely could.

After all, it had only been two months since a trusted subordinate stabbed him in the back.

Still, Go Byeonggap felt an inexplicable dissonance. Seo Sihui seemed to be on humanity’s side, yet she was saying the opposite.

Seo Sihui pressed on without pause.

“Madmut sent us back to the past. That’s when it happened to me, and my convictions changed.”

“It?”

“In a gap of time and space, I met this.”

Seo Sihui closed her eyes.

When they opened, her irises burned gold.

A beastly growl leaked from her lips.

“Grrrrr…”

‘Huh!?’

Go Byeonggap felt every hair on his body stand on end. Her presence had flipped 180 degrees.

A presence so savage and sharp—the aura of a ferocious predator. Without thinking, Go Byeonggap’s hand went to his sword hilt.

Thankfully, she snapped back to normal a moment later.

Go Byeonggap asked, incredulous.

“What… the hell was that just now?”

“That was another me inside. The one who owns the other form you saw earlier.”

Seo Sihui steadied her breathing before speaking.

“This is called a dragon. A creature that lived on this continent in the distant past. At the same time, a race wiped out by Madmut.”