The moment he’d devoured the piece of the demon, Go Byeonggap felt a vast power surging inside him. It wasn’t intuitive like internal energy or karma.

Endless change. An infinite cycle with no direction. A form that defied definition. Yes—that power was chaos.

As he left, many goblins tried to stop him. Don’t go, they said. If you must, take us with you…

All Byeonggap could give them was one promise.

Your king will return. Trust me and wait.

Byeonggap stepped through the gate to Earth. Thank heaven—Go Geonryong was still in the same spot.

“What are you waiting for? Get in stance, you son of a bitch. I’ll kill you exactly as many times as the people you put in the ground.”

He extended his empty hand forward. A pitch-black energy gathered there, forming a sword in an instant—a practical blade stripped of all cumbersome ornamentation, designed solely for slaughtering its target.

“Hoo, demonic power sure is convenient.”

Go Geonryong remained motionless, moving only his eyes. His gaze lingered on the unconscious Sujin.

The situation was grim. He needed to compose the heavenly realm, protect Sujin, and to make matters worse, the aftershocks of the previous battle still wracked his body.

‘It’s almost complete now. I just need to stall a little longer.’

He sent a concept to the Divine Warrior, Eraksen.

Get that man far away. Kill him if possible.

Eraksen, having received the command, rose with his half-shattered body. His form was wretched—cracked and broken in countless places. Yet the presence emanating from his seventy-meter-tall frame was far from negligible.

The already dim surroundings grew even darker with his shadow. Go Byeonggap glared at Eraksen with a sour look and spoke.

“Send some stooge instead of coming yourself, you worthless bastard.”

“…….”

Wooooosh—!

Eraksen immediately drove his sword downward. It was a heavy yet swift thrust, simple and all the more devastating for it. The tip, condensed with karma, looked as if it could sever hundreds of steel plates.

Go Byeonggap’s eyes flashed. He stepped forward with his left foot, twisting his hips in the opposite direction to brace himself. A murky aura rose from his body. The next moment, he thrust his black sword with all his might.

Eraksen’s greatsword and Go Byeonggap’s black sword. Their tips met in a perfect collision of precision.

Crack!

“Huh.”

A sigh escaped Go Geonryong’s lips as he watched the point meet point.

A crack ran through Eraksen’s greatsword. It spread from the tip upward, then coursed through his fingers, arm, shoulder, heart… and throughout his entire body. In an instant, Eraksen became a fissured statue.

“Should’ve done this from the start.”

Go Byeonggap lightly flicked his blade. Crackle! The Divine Warrior, Eraksen, crumbled into pieces, raining down.

The collapsing mass buried Go Byeonggap. But it was no trouble at all. He walked out through the debris, unbothered.

“Should I come to you, or will you come to me?”

“Why…”

Go Geonryong’s voice was hoarse and strained.

Go Byeonggap watched him from a skewed stance, appearing full of openings but poised to take the other’s throat at any moment.

Go Geonryong’s mind was single-mindedly focused on buying time. He spoke.

“Why must we fight?”

“What? Is that your line?”

“Do you know me? I don’t know you.”

Go Geonryong turned half-sideways, standing at an angle. The posture was unguarded, empty of any fighting intent.

“We’ve only met today. What reason do you have to hate me, and what cause have I to bear that hatred?”

“Where does this snake slither from, spouting sophistry? You’re the one who—Madmut!”

“Yes, Madmut. You must have been called Landriol, weren’t you? Listen. Are those things truly us? They’re only something inside us. The man standing before you now is the human Go Geonryong. Just a single human, with his powerless beloved before him.”

Go Geonryong’s eyes pointed to Sujin. Go Byeonggap slowly turned his head to look at her too. Her naked form made him uneasy, and he averted his gaze quickly, but he sensed no particular danger.

“My lover is asleep. The woman I love. She loves me too. Will you kill me in front of Sujin? Do you mean to make her a widow?”

“…….”

“Madmut and Landriol. I know there was something complicated between them—I watched it all unfold from the sidelines. But to think we’d have to tear at each other over their grudge. How should I put this… yeah. Isn’t that just irrational?”

“Irrational.”

Go Byeonggap’s blade slid down with a soft rasp. A glint of interest flickered in Go Geonryong’s eyes. He cleared his throat once, twice, then asked.

“You… what’s your name?”

“Go Byeonggap.”

“Go Byeonggap, Go Byeonggap… I don’t recognize that name at all. Not the face either. Uh… hmm.”

Go Geonryong’s lips twitched. He had to wring out something more to say.

“Your surname’s Go. Which Go clan are you from?”

“Pfft! Heh heh heh.”

Go Byeonggap burst out laughing. He choked and wheezed as he answered.

“Jeju. The Jeju Go clan.”

“Oh, same as me. Are you from the Castle Lord branch? Or the Jangheung Count—”

“Hey.”

“…What?”

“Cut the bullshit and get in stance. You’re so pathetic I can’t listen to another word.”

Go Byeonggap snarled, but Go Geonryong didn’t so much as flinch. He still looked utterly disinclined to fight.

He decided he no longer cared. This wasn’t about some knightly code that forbade fighting an unprepared opponent. There was no need to consider the circumstances of a bastard whose throat he was about to slit.

“You killed my men. My beloved men. Don’t you think that alone gives me a hundred reasons to beat you to death?”

“I can’t understand it at all. Over a few measly goblins… Ah.”

Go Geonryong sensed his mistake the instant it happened. The murderous intent converging on him had thickened past the point of warning—it stung his skin like frostbite.

“A few goblins.”

“Which is why I’m saying—”

“Landriol believed that. That a subject dying for his king was only natural. That a ruler must remain detached from their deaths. I thought I agreed with him once—but looking back now, I don’t think I do.”

Go Byeonggap murmured it. It wasn’t really meant for Go Geonryong.

“If that’s what being a king means, then I refuse.”

He raised his sword. The blade gleamed cold, spewing black smoke in thick streams.

“Looks like you were planning to stall. If you don’t feel like fighting, I’ll make you.”

“Tch!”

Go Byeonggap swung. A jet-black sword aura shot along the arc and hurtled toward Sujin, lying off to the side. Go Geonryong flinched in panic and threw up a barrier.

The barrier shielded Sujin by a hair’s breadth. Bloodshot veins stood out in Go Geonryong’s eyes. His face flushed crimson, swollen with rage.

“You bastard! How dare you—!”

‘A little more. Just a little more!’

Go Byeonggap charged. Go Geonryong still hadn’t moved a muscle—but that didn’t mean he was helpless.

A torrent of karma and thousands of karma bullets engulfed Go Byeonggap. At the same time, an invisible force shifted Sujin behind Go Geonryong’s back.

Go Byeonggap calmly thrust his sword forward. In that instant, a single blade transformed into tens of thousands of tendrils. Each tendril lunged like a viper’s fangs, chewing the bullets to shreds. The sated tendrils swelled in size and merged into a massive wall.

The karma torrent slammed into the wall and dissipated, spent.

“Chaos has no form, no rules. That’s why anything is possible.”

He gripped the sword with both hands and swung with all his might. This time, the blade became a colossal maw and vomited back everything it had devoured.

Go Geonryong’s own attack turned against him.

“Ghk—!”

Go Geonryong cast a defense on the spot. But his mind was scattered in a dozen directions, and his guard was half-hearted at best.

He was caught in the torrent and crushed without resistance. Even so, he shielded Sujin completely.

Go Byeonggap raised an arm as he ran. In his hand now was a pitch-black long spear.

Condensed muscle and demonic fury unleashed explosive thrust. The spear shot forward—invisible in its speed—and pierced Go Geonryong’s chest.

Defense was useless. The dark power gnawed at his karma bit by bit, feeding itself stronger.

“Kuh!”

The spear didn’t stop. It drove on and embedded into the floor. And it wasn’t over. Hands burst from the spear’s shaft and seized Go Geonryong’s neck and limbs. At best, he was a fish skewered on a harpoon.

Go Byeonggap stood before Go Geonryong. Without hesitation, he swung his blade. The edge was fierce and sharp, yet it didn’t cut deep—only grazing skin and muscle, stopping just short of bone.

“Nghhh—aaagh!”

Go Geonryong thrashed. But the sword-hand born from the longspear refused him escape.

“I told you. I’d kill you as many times as the people you’ve killed.”

“… …”

A word game, of course. But the promise of a death more terrible than any other? That was stone-cold sincere.

Byeonggap swung the sword in a trance, mind gone blank. New blades branched from the original edge, and from those branches sharp daggers sprouted again—all swinging with will of their own, wild and wanton.

“Khak! Aaagh! Sto—OOP!! Stop it, you crazy—Khhheok!”

Every single blade flayed Go Geonryong with surgical precision—only flesh, never anything deeper. At his feet, a sodden pile of severed meat and blood grew thick.

Minutes later, Go Geonryong had become a grotesque sight—the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a medical textbook of human anomalies.

Even though he’d nearly subdued his opponent, Go Byeonggap’s expression held no satisfaction.

“Why are you so powerless?”

Go Geonryong was dumbfounded.

Was he really asking that—as if he had no idea what Landriol and the twelve goblins had done to his body? Well, even if that were the case, against most opponents, Geonryong wouldn’t have let a single finger touch him. But against Byeonggap, neither his attacks nor his defenses had worked. There was simply no way to withstand it.

On top of that, he couldn’t even unleash his full power right now. Ascending to the Heavenly Realm required an immense amount of energy, and his Divine Warriors were already dead. That meant the stairs he needed to climb on were gone. To ascend, he had to conserve a certain threshold of strength.

“Heh heh…”

“You’re laughing?”

But Go Geonryong wasn’t despairing. Because he didn’t need to.

A bright, maddened smile spread across his face.

“It’s done!”

It happened in an instant. Go Geonryong unleashed every ounce of karma he could output at once. It was nothing short of a bomb. A crushing pressure and shockwave slammed into Go Byeonggap, who stood mere steps away.

“You think a trick that obvious would work on me?”

Go Byeonggap didn’t flinch. He released his dark aura, canceling the impact. Then he thrust his sword through the current of light. The blade struck Go Geonryong square in the shoulder.

But Go Geonryong instead shook his shoulder violently — deliberately severing his own body. Like a lizard shedding its tail to flee.

Go Geonryong hurled himself toward where Sujin lay. The moment he pulled her into his arms, a blue pillar erupted around them, encasing both in its glow.

“It’s complete! It’s complete, I tell you! Hahahaha! This pathetic flesh — once I ascend to the heavenly realm, it’ll be nothing but a worthless hunk of meat!”

Go Geonryong burst into wild laughter inside the translucent pillar. Byeonggap scowled and hammered his fist against it. A puff of dust bloomed—but the pillar showed not even a scratch.

‘It doesn’t work?’

Byeonggap’s face twisted, while Geonryong’s only grew brighter.

“You fool! This place is already part of heaven. No matter how freakish your strength, as long as we stand on different tiers, your attacks can’t touch me here! Heh heh heh—do you know your real blunder? You let yourself be consumed by useless hatred and wasted time on childish games. Thanks to that, I bought enough time.”

“…….”

Byeonggap pressed his hand to the blue pillar. A fierce resistance blocked his entry—something even the power of chaos couldn’t overcome.

Inside the pillar, Geonryong and Sujin began to rise.

“Curse your own stupidity! How dare you try to deceive me with such paltry power? That’s your arrogance! You’re nothing but a loser, no different from Landriol!”

“Doesn’t really look that way to me.”

“What?”

Byeonggap drove his sword into the ground and crossed his arms.

Geonryong’s face wore a ‘What’s that bastard doing?’ expression—then he snapped his head around.

He realized he and Sujin could rise no higher. Worse, cracks were spiderwebbing across the pillar encasing them.

Geonryong could never have guessed.

That short text Byeonggap had sent to the entire world, ages ago.

How that single sentence—‘Attack the pillars’—had borne fruit.

Yes. A butterfly’s tiny wingbeat had summoned a storm.