By Zephyria 
As if the fact that he had been quietly defending until now was a lie, his sword cut through the heavens and earth he had traversed without hesitation, slashing through Tae-un’s attacks. His darkness vanished, like a shadow scattering when exposed to light.
His footsteps, which had been cautious as if afraid of stepping on Tae-un’s corpses strewn across the floor, now strode forward relentlessly. The limbs of the corpses caught in the sword strikes were severed, and the scent of blood, not yet dried, spread thickly. It was surely a resolution that he would no longer waver, and evidence that he had chosen everyone, not just one.
Watching his own former corpses being brutally torn apart, Tae-un suddenly wondered how he had died, but he flinched and leaped back as a long blade stretched toward him. Even so, he couldn’t completely escape the strike; his clothes over his chest were deeply slashed, and blood splattered.
He had forgotten because Kim Si-baek had consistently used the blade at a conventional length, but his sacred artifact allowed him to adjust its length at will. The wound on his chest, caused by the sudden attack, soon began to burn black. It was proof that he was truly drifting away from being human.
“…….”
Even seeing Tae-un’s wound, Kim Si-baek’s expression remained unchanged. He must have attacked and eradicated countless magical beasts like this. This was a fitting result for Tae-un as well.
Tae-un lightly brushed off the wounded area with his hand. As if to show that this was nothing more than a scratch, he provoked Kim Si-baek further.
“Hyung, I even let you recover your divine power to your heart’s content. It’s no fun if you come out looking this dull. Do you still see me as a child who needs your protection?”
“You’re the one who can manipulate the environment here as you wish. Isn’t it a bit cowardly to drag me into a place that’s disadvantageous for me?”
“You’re the one who entered the Id Portal, Hyung.”
Tae-un crossed his arms with a feigned nonchalance and tapped the floor with his foot.
“I thought that if my Id Portal formed, no one would be able to enter and they would just mutate. But it turns out the capacity was one person.”
“Would it have been better to just let it run wild without entering?”
“I’d prefer that. If magical beasts poured out onto a raid team exhausted from hunting kun, they’d be wiped out easily. Whether it was Pi Min-hyeong or Seo Gae-un, they would have died equally. Hmm, though Si-woon hyung wouldn’t have been there.”
Then, as if a funny thought had occurred to him, he rubbed his lips and smiled thinly.
“Once you cross the Han River, it’s a short trip to Daejeon. The guilds remaining in Daejeon aren’t much to speak of, and the orphanage where Sister Hyo-ju Agnes is has no means of defense.”
“…….”
“You’re not thinking it’ll be safe just because you have to cross the sea to get to America, right? If the portal mutates, I’ll be released from here too. I know where Si-woon hyung’s laboratory and home are.”
“…….”
“Want to make a bet after I mutate the portal? Whether you’ll reach Si-woon hyung first to save him, or whether I’ll kill him first.”
In front of Tae-un, who continued to speak leisurely, Kim Si-baek closed and opened his eyes once. In the eyes that looked straight at him, there wasn’t a single point of hesitation. Just as Tae-un expected. Or perhaps, just as he dreaded.
“Un-ah, I told you to choose, right? You’ve said a lot of things, but in the end, it just boils down to whether I’ll kill you or let you live.”
“That’s a strange summary. It’s whether I’ll save the world or destroy it.”
“It’s the same thing.”
Tae-un, who had been quietly meeting those unwavering hazel eyes, asked back without barely moving his lips.
“So, have you chosen?”
“Yes.”
Kim Si-baek lifted Sonas, which he had been holding down, forward. Just before Tae-un realized the dissonance that the long blade—extended just as it had been during the previous attack—had somehow become thinner, a clear beam of light erupted from the floor.
“What the—”
The soft light constricted Tae-un’s body like chains. Letting out a bewildered voice, Tae-un twisted his body, but his physical form, seized by divine power, could neither collapse as it had before nor overflow with magical energy. Though he could not read it, the light formed the divine characters of mak slecht.
What Kim Si-baek had meticulously laid across the floor were strands of Sonas, stretched thin like threads by injecting divine power. Because the divine power was extremely faint, Tae-un, who had not completely abandoned his human body, failed to detect it.
“Damn it!”
Tae-un hurriedly surged his power. The hastily constructed divine characters could not withstand his strength and began to creak, twist, and crack. Even if they were improvised, the divine characters—which would normally bind even an ordinary magical beast so it couldn’t budge—were on the verge of shattering in the blink of an eye, but Kim Si-baek had already reached him before he could even take a breath.
Closing the distance in an instant, Kim Si-baek pressed himself close to Tae-un. In the hand he brought behind Tae-un’s back, as if embracing him, was a white, glowing blade.
“I’m sorry, but I know how to deal with a Servant of Chaos better than you do.”
Then, the white blade pierced through both Tae-un and Kim Si-baek’s bodies simultaneously.
✽ ✽ ✽
Back when he was swept into the Id Portal of the MA Department Store, he had once heard Tae-un talking to himself. Later, after hearing Moon Seong-hee’s explanation that one loses consciousness without even time for a monologue when swept into an Id Portal, he wondered if he had misheard, but now that he knew what Tae-un was and looked back, it had definitely been a monologue.
Biyendwe had also not lost consciousness, and Kim Si-baek himself had regained his senses much earlier than the others. He probably would have recovered consciousness even sooner if his divine power had been sufficient at the time.
Thus, Kim Si-baek hypothesized. When a single microcosm and world like an Id Portal is constructed, divine power—which is the polar opposite of the source, magical energy—would be somewhat free from its laws.
The gamble, which he wasn’t 100% sure of, succeeded.
As the core of Tae-un, the Portal Keeper, shattered and the magical energy that composed the world scattered, Kim Si-baek’s blood, rich with divine power, poured out and mixed in. An error occurred at the source of the world that was about to collapse.
When Kim Si-baek opened his eyes while stifling a groan, Tae-un, who had been held as if in an embrace, was gone, and he was greeted only by a deep darkness that felt like a fragment of Tae-un. He felt neither mass nor buoyancy beneath his feet, but the intense pain was vivid. He healed the wound in his chest where Sonas had pierced and looked up.
“O Chaos, I request your time.”
The language a god uses to manifest in the phenomenal world, rather than through an avatar, is something humans cannot withstand, and divine utterances cannot be sent unless it is to a believer who serves them. However, although an error had occurred, this was Tae-un’s world of mental imagery, not reality, and he was a priest of Chaos. The consciousness of the god dwelling within the priest’s mental imagery willingly conveyed its will.
「Apostle of the young god, have you called us?」
From Chaos, which revealed no presence whatsoever, only a multitude of overlapping voices echoed. Kim Si-baek felt his lips go dry. Would the mother god of Biyendwe, who was defeated by Chaos and devoured, also be mixed among those voices?
The probability of him, a mere apostle, confronting and surviving the ancient god Chaos was zero. That remained true even if it was not the god’s true self, but a fragment of will dwelling in a mental landscape.
However, since this was the only way to save Tae-un, Kim Si-baek continued without hesitation.
“Was it you who allowed me to vicariously experience Un-i’s memories outside the portal?”
「It was.」
“Did you show me because there is something you want from me?”
「What we anticipate is a human who has not yet paid their debt. What will you do?」
“I wish to have your apostle returned to me as a human.”
Chaos looked down upon him.
「Our child has killed even your brother. Not once, but many times.」
“…….”
「And yet, do you still wish to have him back?」
Even knowing that the countless corpses of Tae-un were no longer visible, Kim Si-baek let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes.
“All I saw were the memories from the time he killed his brother.”
It was a sight far more horrific than the vague imagination of a young brother dying. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t shocked.
At the same time, that sight gave Kim Si-baek a certain conviction. Tae-un, who had thrown his own corpses, had allowed him to see only a part, not the entirety of the memories they held.
“I do not know the circumstances of why he decided to kill his brother. If he killed him out of hatred, then the brother would either be dead now, or I wouldn’t even know if he were alive.”
But as soon as the Great Cataclysm occurred, Tae-un had called to save his current brother and guided him to him.
“That is why I wish to hear it directly from that child.”
「Very well. Take him.」
Along with the cunning laughter of Chaos, memories poured out. It was the time of countless deaths that Tae-un had harbored alone.